Day 1: The Great Get Back

Day 1 of the "Great Get Back" was a success.

I flirted with the idea of going to Hollywood Park all day long but I opted to do laundry, get my car washed and go to the batting cages. Traffic on the 405 was horrible so I decided if I was going to hit HP, I'd wait until traffic was over.

Early in the evening my boy that recently started his home game hit me up and let me know that he wants to improve his game by adding house players, which would include me. He also wanted ideas from me on how to improve the game.

So I went over to his condo at the W hotel around 9 pm to play in the game and talk to him about improving it. When I got there, he was there with the dealer. No one else. They were sitting around playing some first-person shooter game on x-box.

For the next two hours we talked about improving his game, which basically meant adding more girls that would flirt with the players and getting more action players, less grinders. The entire time I was wondering 'Is there even going to be a game tonight?' Didn't look like it. It was already 11 p.m. and I was still the only player there. At this point, I was actually getting a little impatient. One of my boys was telling me how good the action was at Hollywood Park and another friend was requesting my help to recruit strippers from the strip club for his birthday party on Saturday. Instead of doing either, I was sitting in this empty condo watching video games.

Finally around 11:30 p.m., a guy called and said he was coming with two friends. That makes four players. Throw in my boy who owns the condo and that's five players. Then the second dealer decided he would play. Six. Then my boy told the security guard to buy in for $100 house chips and play. Seven. We have a game, $5/5 blinds and I'm in for $500.

I told the security guard that I was going to put pressure on him because he's so short stacked. My first button and his small blind, I raise to $20 with Ad8d. He shoves all-in and says "That's for picking on me."

I know he's scared to lose the money and plays super tight. He probably even has AK, minimum. I'm 100% positive that I should fold and I'm way behind. But it agitated me that he said I was picking on him. He deserves a bad beat. So I called the extra $75 and he turned over kings. I told him I needed an ace. Flop: J-4-5. Turn: 3. River: 2. I didn't even think I made a hand but I looked at the board three times and then realized I had the wheel. Goodbye security guard. He was pissed.

Later in the game I won a big three-way all-in pot. My buddy straddled to $10. One of the three other players min-raised to $20. I was in the small blind with QQ and I had been the main aggressor the whole game to this point. I made it $110. My buddy who straddled called. The min-raiser re-re-raised all-in to $250. I went all-in and my buddy called for $280 more. I told him "You idiot, I have queens." He says "You want to just chop it up right now?" I said, "Hell no, you're trying to suck out on me. $100 rebate either way." This is the benefit of home games, you can do shit like this. My buddy tabled J9 of spades and the other guy turned over A-9 off-suit. The flop came jack high to give me a sweat but it bricked out and I won the pot. Finally, after a month of running like dog shit, I have a hand hold up in a big pot.

We only ended up playing for two hours and I won $1300, which was nice. After everyone left I played Chinese poker with the dealer and my buddy and broke even after an hour. Overall, it was a good night for me and the $1300 is a big boost right now.

I'll start tracking my winnings and where I'm playing.


Day 1 (6.16) Home Game: +1300 2.0 Hrs.